Green Carnation have always been one of those bands that put out a very impressive album that seems to go underrated but never disapoints. Alive And Well… In Krakow is no exception. This release features a very well put together live concert recording, as well as a slew of bonus material that any fan of the band, new or old, is going to appreciate.

If you have never seen Green Carnation live (which, at the time of writing this review is impossible as the band is currently on hold) then you are in for a real treat. The recording on here is very professional and well done, with the audio sounding moreso that it’s being recorded from the speakers and not necessarily from the sound board, giving a very accurate depiction of the band’s live performance. The entire concert is performed very fluidly, and at no point, even during the nearly twenty three minute song “Light of Day, Day of Darkness (1st Part)”, will you ever grow bored of watching this set.

The only complaint about this live performance would have to be the volume of the vocalist throughout the entire concert. When he goes to introduce a song, sometimes it is very hard to hear the man since he talks so long, and even during the performance you can tell he’s singing loudly but at times, he’ll go for a lower pitch and you can’t really hear him since the music pretty much washes his voice out almost completely. This is almost enough to turn you away from watching the performance on the first song “Into Deep” because of how bad the levels are, as well as the vocalist almost sounding off key with the song, as if he wasn’t properly warmed up.

Aside that, the transitions between songs could also be better. The band usually doesn’t pause much between the songs during the performance, which is great, but the vocalist will either say the song name prior to the song starting, which is great, or in the case of “The Boy in the Attic”, he’ll say the song name during the start of the song, and in this case other information. Not only does it come off a bit amateurish to do something like that, but due to the volume on the microphone you have a hard time hearing him anyhow. If there were more transitions like the one prior to the song “Rain”, as well as “As Life Flows By”, the performance would have been absolutely perfect.

Aside the main concert, you have some bonus material here that those who enjoy this band’s work, fans or casual listeners, will enjoy. You get a collection of seven bonus tracks, which would have been great if placed on a bonus CD instead of a bonus audio section of the DVD. The first four are simply acoustic renditions of songs the band is known for, and are very well done. The cover tracks “Stay on These Roads” and “Wicked Game” are good as well, but for some reason seem a bit out of place for the band. The biggest downer about the audio tracks is that you cannot really control them outside of clicking which on you want to play, or the “play all” feature. You cannot fast forward, go back, or even skip a song in the playlist, which in turn makes you either listen to all of them in one shot, or click the next song to skip a bad one and have to click each song coming up.

Finally you have the bonus video clips, which are set up nicer then the audio clips are obviously. The first live track, “Crushed To Dust”, sounds really close to the quality of the original performance. However, all three tracks are a rather rough quality and the last two, “The Boy in the Attic” and “Writings on the Wall”, are the rawest due to lesser quality cameras picking up the concert. It’s nice to get a feel of how the band plays when not purposely recording a concert, but at the same time it would have been nice to have live performances of other songs. Included is a video that shows the drummer recording his part on the track “Into Deep” which really doesn’t look like the band was recording them in this video at all, but meerly claiming it as the drummer hammers out the song in one take against a black background. Really the only bonus video aspect of the DVD really worth anything would be the band interview which gives a bit of insight into the band.

There really isn’t anything different between this release and the 2004 release of the DVD. The only notable difference is the artwork, which does look nice, but if you have seen the original artwork for the release, you will be a little let down as this one just doesn’t really look as professional. But, that’s about it, everything else is the same including the bonus materials and even the insert which features the releases only up to the point of 2004.

Really, Alive And Well… In Krakow is a good DVD with an impressive live performance. Outside of the performance, there isn’t much else to talk about. Not only do you have the generic space fillers of bios and discographies and all that, but you have some great bonus audio tracks you can only hear on a DVD player, as well as some bonus videos that are nice but you’ve already seen. Granted the band only has three albums prior to the recording of this performance, it still would have been nice to have “bootlegged” footage of other songs on here. Either way, if you’re a fan of Green Carnation you’re going to love cathing this live performance, as well as the bonus audio on here. As far as the rest of the bonus material goes, you will probably just shrug it off after watching once, if at all.